https://www.bytestone.uk/afp/plain-text-accounting/Recent content in Plain text accounting on Bytestone BlogHugoenFri, 10 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.bytestone.uk/afp/plain-text-accounting/journalasplaintext/Fri, 10 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.bytestone.uk/afp/plain-text-accounting/journalasplaintext/<h1 id="journal-entries">Journal Entries</h1> <p>Pacioli as translated by <em><a href="../../afp/references/#geisjbeck-1914">Geisjbeck 1914</a></em> has a very nice division of the primary records into:</p> <ul> <li>Opening Inventory</li> <li>Day book</li> <li><strong>Journal</strong></li> <li>Ledger</li> </ul> <p>The journal is a neat list of entries which are cross referenced and entered in the ledger. Now a computer is great at animating that data so you only need to enter the journal data. Each journal entry is a single transaction in date order.</p> <h2 id="two-legs-better">Two legs better</h2> <p>I am taken with the idea of the directed graph to inform the way you create plain text accounting. Most plain text formats follow [ledger from John Wiegley] <em><a href="../../afp/references/#wiegly-2003">Wiegly 2003</a></em> in that they are journals which support transactions with multiple posting legs:</p>